Icarus Icily
by lady vonne
Summary: <html><head></head>Harry is not quite the same since the end of the War and, God, he just wants his dues. Thus, in the dead of the night, he collects. Draco Malfoy seems like the perfect place to start. dark!fic, dark!harry. Poor darling Draco. Never really stood a chance.</html>


**Vonne:** One-shot featuring Vampire!Harry and Draco caught somewhere in the middle. Dark!fic, but not too gory, but Draco's always had it coming, anyway, hasn't he? Done by request.

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><p><em>"Hi, I'm Icarus, I'm falling down. Man for judgement must prepare me. Spare. Oh God, in mercy, spare me."<em>

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><p><strong>Icarus Icily<strong>

**I.**

Smile.

It's the first thing you tell him in the dark at the very instant that his back comes in contact with the broadest end of the wall.

"Smile..."

He doesn't, but that's not to be expected. What he _does_ do is whimper and the sound is beautiful, so you're happy to do the all the smiling for him.

It's sometime in the late afternoon, but you're not too busied to notice the eternal blackness. You relish in the way that the shadows call in upon you, too overcome with the sheer intensity of everything that it makes you buzz in the cold, and the calm, and the quiet. Each Lunar Cycle can be felt in your veins and every glistening star can be spotted in the flecks of your iris. You don't just adore the night... you worship it. So enamored with the turbulence of the tide, you don't miss a beat, for the rhythm resides in your heart, lined longingly within the lasting length of your limbs.

It's not as if you've snapped. Not really. Rather, you consider 'enlightened' a better term and, instead, choose to identify yourself by it. _Extortioner_, you think, amusedly. _Leech_. Now more than ever, you ache for the tantalizing taste of iodized iron and piquant protein. _So ha-ha_, very funny; perhaps in a cruel, calculating sense, but either way, its fitting enough. Still, it _does _all account to the collective contents of _this_ high-held savior. Once an innocent angel, now a despicable demon. Only tonight you laugh at the thought; for everything is just all muddled up in a form of compound cliches and, really, you want nothing more than to repeat over and over again, _I vant to drink your bloooood..._

Okay, so maybe it is just a _bit_ more than amusing. _God_, you think,_ it's downright hilarious_.

The fearful figure of Draco Malfoy at the other end of the room only makes the situation that much more so, though you're still a bit foggy on the details of how it came to be that you'd decided upon the Manor for the residency of tonight's feast. However, you don't even _try _to deny the existence of desire that has been burning within your very chest for weeks on end. And perhaps that's it, then, the sensation; for it climbs _up, up, up_, until the essence of every agonizing affliction arouses you in ways that even you can't conceptualize. And tonight, you feed it. Poor Draco, deserving little demon. _For now cometh Potter_, you muse, _strode forth to deliver destiny._

_Smile._

You want to shout at him, but you don't- you_ show_ him instead. Mechanically, you lift the corners of your lips up higher, permitting something of a sneak-peek into the sharpened point of your toothy grin. And the whole world thus fawns with the sudden sight of you, so spine-chilling that the magnificent mirror does not dare to reveal your image. Yet nothing of the sort puts pause to your presence, for this is the night you've been waiting for, the night you've been longing for- in which not even Draco bloody Malfoy can put a stop to, and he's said to be quite stubborn.

_But that_, you think, _is going to be the best part of all_. Breaking him. You think of Malfoy like a toy, still wrapped up in his packaging, and it's not your fault that he looks so perfect behind the veil of petty plastic wrap. _Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty_, you think. God, it's got to be a crime to be so pretty. And the words, "Hullo, Draco," tumble from your lips like a purr, but you like the way that it sounds, for it renders Draco as useless as a board; and then he's so stiff that you're surprised to find him keeping up his balance at all.

Still, you overlook the petrified state of your prey, eyeing him casually while, finally, you lower your first fervid foot back to the floorboards. "Been a while..."

And it has, admittedly. Been a while. The last time you'd seen Draco bloody Malfoy, he'd been sitting in the center of an interrogation room filled with an ample amount of Aurors and not one of them looked happy. You'd known him since he was an eleven year old boy, but you'd never seen him look as small as he had in that very moment. Then, when you'd seen him in the court room, it had been the image of his glistening gray eyes that had supplied you with so much sympathy, and you'd recited your testimony only to watch him stumble back off into the darkness without even an encore. But _you'd_saved him from the fire-filled pits of Hell, hadn't you? Single handedly, you, Harry Potter, had plucked him from the polluted pales of prison. And perhaps that meant he'd owed you something now, but first you think you might owe _him_...

You picked tonight to test out Draco's Diner long before you even had thought it through. As for the dinner special? Well, you hope it's ferret.

He just looks so _skinny_. The way his feet rest on the floorboards makes him a tangle of limbs, and the rise and fall of his chest makes him papery and pathetic. You wonder if he's got you figured out, but the sense of his awareness confirms it. He knows something's wrong, knows it by the flash of your two black eyes and the slow slip of your smooth steps. And you glance around the room in the wake of the darkness, eyes catching the bottle of potions lined up around the bed. You wonder how much he takes, how well he sleeps at night, and how long he's been drugging himself. The he rasps, "Wh-What's wrong with y-you, P-Potter?"

_Ah-ha! _You've been waiting to hear him sneer at your for years and when he finally does, it does not fail to deliver. But you can't deny the way he stammers it; face breaking out in sweat almost too quickly, the blond is just a trapped little rabbit now, far beyond the likes of escaping his room. You're just too close to the door and he's just too far from the light. His exit would be a miracle and the look on your face alone emits the promise that tonight, there will be none of those. "Now, Draco," you mock him, pouting just a bit, "you're not going to say 'hello' to me, as well?"

"G-Get out of my house!" It's his only answer and he leans forward to spit it at you, though you spot the way that his face flinches, shrinking back the very moment after he does so. Hiding. You see right through the act like cellophane and, God, its great to be alive.

Half-alive. Or, something of the sort. You're not really sure which applies to you anymore, but if its _not_ blood that's pumping though your veins, than its desire and disaster and _devour, devour, devour..._

"Now that's no way to treat your guests." You're talking about him kicking you out, but you grin like you've forgiven him and he's not buying it.

Still there's a long moment where he looks at you and you think he might bite out a snide remark, but he doesn't and, instead, casts his eyes down from your gaze ever so slightly. You wonder how he's lived so long without his wand and you can't help but feel elated at the twitching way that his heart beats in his sternum. It's loud enough now that you can hear it all the way across the room. But Draco says, "you're _not_ a guest."

As to be expected, you ignore him and slide even closer towards his frame, immersed completely within the shadow of his bedroom. It's a large enough room, you think, and the elegant walls are aligned with posters of the Slytherin Quidditch team. There's pictures of all his dead friends atop the mantle place; and out of the corner of your eye, you spot Pansy inside a square frame, eying you lazy from the spot of grass she'd been photographed in. Poor Pansy, petrified permanently in the plaque of a picture. She wouldn't even be able to look away when you sunk your teeth in.

Then you ask him, "You're not still _mad _at me, are you?" and he stiffens, catching wind of your playful tone, too aware of the enjoyment you're getting out of his entrapment. And then there's a swift moment of silence where he looks away, breath caught, for his eyes sweep around the room and he's panicked. "Don't tell me you're still holding a grudge..." As you speak, you pull your way into him, just by the other side of the bed, black hair messy and wild about your pale, pale face. "Because... I'd like you to know that I'd like us to be friends."

"I'll c-call the Ministry," he tells you, frozen against the wall at his back. There's still a spark in him that wants to frighten you, but his skill at it is so terrible that you can't help but laugh. He's absolutely nothing like that boy that you'd known all those years in school; the War's changed him and, secretly, you wonder how many times he's even left the Manor since. And you think back over the two years that its been, recapping the events as they whisk through your mind like film rolls. Two years. It seems like two hundred.

Through the grapevine, you've heard how they don't even print copies of _The Daily Prophet_ anymore. Only _Quibbler'_s. Nowadays, Rita Skeeter doesn't work in publishing. There are no more books ridiculing the legacy that is Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, and Hogwarts has been completely rebuilt. Mcgonagall's been made Headmaster. Neville teaches there. But they give the most honors to you and now, you even have an entirely bloody_museum _constructed in your honor. A yearly holiday. People go all out for it and, during the parade, they wave and wear fake glasses and superficial scars at their foreheads.

Kingsley does a speech. Hermione straightens your tux and Ron pokes fun of you from the background. Last year an artist sculpted you into a statue that you think doesn't resemble you at all. But they place the piece in the park by the graveyard and it stays out for the public who visit, and admire, and photograph it. You live on as a hero, and Draco... Draco's nothing. They don't mention him in the updated version of _Hogwarts, A History. _At least, not fondly.

In other news, people have lost limbs, gone crazy, died off.

Two years, three months into your recovery of War, you're sleeping alone on the sofa and a bat bites you on the neck. The next morning, your bathroom mirror shows you emptiness reflected.

But Malfoy's mouth moves in front of you and his lips tremble in the oddest way, making his face like a child's, so fragile and fractured within every flick of his face. "Th-They'll come..." he reminds you, and his voice lacks a certain amount of bitterness.

Still, you take an ample amount of pleasure in telling him, "No they won't."

And they won't, of course, because no one cares what happens to Draco Malfoy. Not anymore. Not since his parents died and he got custody of the Manor. You think that the Ministry is just waiting for him to die off, anyway, now and, really, who are you to refuse them the fast way out? What you and Draco Malfoy have in common now is that you both aren't a part of any of it. So secluded from the outside universe, the pair of you live lives of recluses, rotting away like waste in the garbage bin. Sure, it might take time for the Wizarding World to get over the disappearance of their favorite boy hero, but no one in their right mind is going to mourn the loss of Malfoy.

With a chuckle, you consider that they might even celebrate.

So you round the bed and push aside the blankets upon them, twisting your body around the frame and directing it to the space of Draco's crooked posture. He's looking back and forth between you and the door at your back and, shaking, asks, "What d-do you want from me?"

It's been so long since that night in the Ministry. The morning after Malfoy had been pardoned, you read about it in the paper and, for a long moment, you don't really know what to think. The first week, you look for any sign of a blond head amongst a large cluster of crowds. Every once in a while, you throw the name 'Draco' into casual conversation, hoping someone will soothe your curiosity. No one ever does. No one ever knows.

Except you. Except you _now. _You're looking back in his eyes when you realize this. Then the answer falls from your lips nonchalantly. "My dues."

And you go to pursue your feast.

**II.**

What you love most is the way that Malfoy stiffens.

Upon the wall, his back pushes. And slightly, he looks as if he's about to faint. "What h-happened t-to you...?"

Just the cautious way that his words ooze out of the open emptiness of his mouth makes you shiver. It's still the same time, the same place, the same moment, but the sensation, blissful as it may be, travels down the curve of your very spine and ignites, as a spreading sense, in your very bones- deep, like its the very pit of you. And you think, "_God, if there's anyone in the world who deserves this its Draco Mafoy."_ Never before has a living human being struck you in such a profound way. For its the obsession, you know, that propels you. The hostile looks you had given him at school make so much sense; and you remember how from across the classroom, you'd caught the flash of his cold, gray eyes. Lingering. Every aching _moment_ made you loathe him that much more. You didn't even want Voldemort to endure this much; just wanted _that one_ dead_. _But Draco's different, for Draco's the type that you wish to make suffer. That _deserves, _more than anything, to suffer. Cause, oh _God, _you just want to see him suffer.

So you take, in every sort of way possible, the slowest route around his cot- trailing your fingers across the blankets that sit like mountains on the mattress. He watches you twitchingly then, and you note ever flinch that plagues him prominently, for you can't miss it. And you think of how stupid he looks in his pyjamas, underneath that mess of fluffy blond hair before you even remember he's asked you a question. What had happened to you? He wants to know. So you think funny thoughts about all the ways that you can simply just show him._ "Well, little ferret,"_ the hungry half of your mind growls,_ "It'd be easier to demonstrate, but that might take all the fun out of it, don't you think?"_

So you offer him clues. He's a smart boy; you're sure he will figure it out. And you lean against the bed board, equally as absented-wanded as he is. "I'll give you three hints."

It's the longer way to do things, but you fancy the way that he squirms, panicked, as his eyes dart back and forth once again between you and the door. He looks like something trapped. Caged. A tiny little animal petrified against the back of his hypothetical bars that, in reality, don't even exist. Three guesses you'll give him, because doesn't he know that all good things come in threes? And although you're almost certain that perhaps he won't think too fondly of _this _golden trio, you can't help the smile that spreads across your fragmented face frenziedly. Oh, the indigenous irony. Oh, the profound pity. All in all, you're quite enjoying the entertainment in the way that you find zoo-goers might, too. At some point in his life, he'd called this whole thing upon himself, you know.

"H-Hints?" croaks the boy and you nod, chin bobbing up and down just ever so much, barely an action intertwined within the mix of all that maliciousness.

"Hints," comes your confirmation. He's trying to stall, and you know it. But two can play at that game, now can't they?

Anyway, it scares him the way that you freeze, momentarily ingesting the emotions that ooze from his very pores. He reeks of a fear so fantastic that your knees go weak and your head goes numb. When you lift your first finger, he breaks out in a sweat. Every tantalizing second roots you even further, makes you even surer. As you take in the sights from your distance, you're even able to spot the perspiration as it beads up on the edges of his hanging hairline. "One," you start, and he winces at the sound of your voice which is, by all means, skillfully soft and sweet. But you're at the edge of the cot when you say it and, this time, Draco's palms slip and slide against their sturdy surfaces. _One._ "I burn in the sun."

And it's true; you do. It's total shite that some people nowadays think otherwise because, really, you've got the marks there along the flash your flesh to prove it. It hadn't been intentional, of course, but you'd strode out into the daylight to test the little rumor for yourself one evening after you'd felt particularly curious. Needless to say, you won't ever try _that_ stunt ever again and, currently, your sunny day appearances now are always paired with the likes of broad rimmed caps, thick denim jeans, and a pair of bloody long johns- just to be certain. Still, the notion makes you laugh. With skin like Draco's, the pasty prat is sure to outright roast.

"Two." When you speak this time its from the close up space of his pillows, and the fluffy old things line the floor around the soles of your feet. Before you give him the new hint, you step forwards towards him in a slow waltz, appropriated by the way that you extend a hand out towards his front. Helpful, except not. _Two_, you say, for you've given him the first hint already_._ "I sleep in a coffin."

This one's true as well, but mainly for effect. For good measure, you'd sold your bed to the highest bidder and replaced it with a two-hundred pound coffin. It had been an impulse sort of thing, really, though the heavy barriers block out the light well enough and, all things considered, you get great sleep in it. The cherry on top had been that you'd heard it had once housed the corpse of the infamous Rasputin himself and, by God, that little tidbit made it all worth while. However, you doubt Draco will share the same fascination with the past history of your bed. Back against the wall currently, the blond looks more like he'd rather have absolutely nothing to do with the subject, thank you very much. Still. It's not as if you're giving him much of a choice. Even far away he looks bloody delicious; you can taste the musk of arrogance from feet away and, in anticipation, you indulge yourself just that much longer. Coffins. Funny thing about those things is that, no matter how dead you consider yourself to be, its still the best sleep you've had throughout the course of your entire fucking existence. Who knew?

Perhaps not Draco, whose bed looks a right mess and you wonder how long he's been having nightmares. It's not an assumption, but a fact; and the wafting smell of his bad nights dances around your nostrils beautifully. Of all the dreams that his head could conjure, its a mystery as to which one scares him the most; however, you relish in the notion that, after tonight, you'll probably haunt the halls of every single one of them. Poor, pathetic rich kid. Unfortunate, unbearable aristocrat. What of his bloody father now? Surely the boy will want to tell him all about this night when you're all good and done with him... So,_ "Come now, Draco,_" you think silently before you're almost close enough to stroke his face, _"stiffen that upper lip."_ He's starting to look all white as a ghost over there, you know.

"S-Stop f-fucking around, Potter." Malfoy's harsh hiss snaps you back out of your previous delirium. He looks sopping wet now, and the glistening way that his eyes shimmer does nothing to boost the likes of his threat level.

However, you ignore him calmly with a flick of your feet. Like a bride, you close the space between the two of you rhythmically and dismiss him with a long, drawn out hush that tingles upon the chapped expanse of your eager lips. "Let's be fair..." you're telling him when you're close enough to do the act already; then you lift your hand up to the space just next to his ear and position it against the wall, leaning, as you dip the heavy weight of your head merely inches from the sharp of his jawline. "I've still got one more hint left."

Draco's body goes slightly limp. He doesn't sink to the ground, but instead slackens against the wallpaper at the very moment your own body comes in contact with the likes of his. He doesn't want to look at you, so instead he presses his eyes shut, and the fall of his lungs come out in a series of slow, painful breaths. "So much for the world's savior now," you want him to snap, but he doesn't and the lack of fight slightly disappoints you. Fracturing him has been easy, too easy, but there'd been a War some time ago, too; and you wonder how much of him had already been broken before you'd even slipped through the opening of his window. Anyway. Foolish thing, windows. Neither of you had thought to lock them in the past and, all in all, look where it's landed you.

And its the night that calls to you now, for the moon is fat, and full, and pregnant. It's the night, you think, in which you've been waiting. The night, you _know_, that you've been longing_. _What you do next is slip from the spot slightly, and this time, extend a spidery hand to brush away the strands of his fallen hair. Thumbing the dampness of his flesh, you bend in close and take in the constellation marks of his sweat beads, connecting the dots childishly to prepare your teeth for him. "You really were a prat in school, you know."

Funny thing, that. Still, its Draco's mistake and not your own. It does nothing to diminish the desire in your chest, stands nowhere against the pump of your veins. You still want to do it, still want to ruin him. And, after all, he really does deserve every ounce of it. "Want to hear the last clue?" you ask, and your words curl longingly around the long, slender slide that is his neck. But Draco's _doesn't _want to know, for he keeps his eyes shut and shakes his head timidly; while, in the white of the moonlight, a lock of his blond hair falls faintly across his forehead. "No?"

Malfoy keeps shaking his head. '_God, no,' _seems something more like it, but he sees nothing, says nothing, does_ nothing. _You think, perhaps, that he simply does not want his non-existent parents to hear, for he seems to expect they'd arrive to save him only to end up just as fucked as he will be in a matter of moments. Amusing, you know, how after all they'd done to protect him in the War, he still ends up screwed. But pretty Narcissa and proud Lucius aren't around anymore. He knows that. And, "I think you want to hear it," you advise him, while the spoiled little brat shakes his head back and forth. "This last one... it's good." When a sad whimper escapes his lips, you lean in real close and nudge the end of your nose against the sweaty stretch of his neck. Then you close the gap between your bellies and pinch, with your free hand, the end of his trembling chin. He still won't look at you. For the life of him, Draco Malfoy _still _won't look.

"I bite," you tell him. And then you do.

And everything- _everything_- comes together. Underneath the pressure of your jaw, Draco gives one jolting struggle before he can't anymore. He gasps once, and then his chin hits the collar by your shoulder _out, out, out. _Like a rag doll, he goes completely lax in your grip and you watch his knees give at the wall, dependent upon your hands to hold him. But the blood rushes through the opening of your lips and, with every passing second, Draco's face goes white; which is saying something, for he was so, so white already. Still. It's the type of ecstasy that the boy emits that you couldn't have even prepared yourself for. Blissful, you allow him to lean into you, and your eyes catch the pained way that his face falls about your presence. He's been knocked unconscious, but the twitch of his bruised eyelids hold your attention so much so that soon enough, you're fumbling with him to the ground at the floorboards, weak. Legs crooked out in front of him invalidly, his body gives a sloppy moan and his fingers twitch like the legs of a spider, overturned. And you keep your cavities latched into him as you roughly lean his body against the end of the back wall; carrying on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and _on_...

And Draco Malfoy tastes of arrogance and pride which, of course, you suck out first. With it comes the times in the corridors in which he'd passed you swiftly, knocking purposefully against your shoulder in a bold sort of manner. Perpetuating. You go for the times he'd sneered at you in the court yard, for the times he'd hexed you after class... tripped you in the hallways. The big clot in your drink? That's the day in the girl's bathroom fleeting away from him. You'd almost killed him then, but _God,_ he'd been asking for it, so you puncture still with the reminder of the Unforgivable he'd tossed in your direction. He could have harmed you, just as well. Could have killed you. But it's gone thanks to you. Gone. Swallowed whole into the contents of your sickened stomach.

Each schoolyard insult is sucked from the veins of his body to slide down the length of your throat. Every stab at the Weasley's poverty, every hiss of the word 'Mudblood'. With precise aim, you pull from him every fault, every fracture. Gone are the sneers and the scoffs. The callous stares and bloody mind fucks. You're ridding him of these things, these sins. And even if he doesn't know it yet, he really is better off.

And you think you've just about got him until finally, you don't.

Something about your feast is off, and you latch your teeth into his skin and as the thump in your head gets louder, louder, louder. In rushes everything else-pain, anxiety, fear. Still bent up in front of Draco's slumped torso, your tongue twitches with the taste of the rest. The unnoticed. It's everything about Draco Malfoy that you'd rather not see, everything about Draco Malfoy that you'd rather not know. For, all at once, you're downing the pressure of pleasing parents, of fixing vanishing cabinets... of being Marked. You see bright green lights, hear blood-curling screams, and feel tantalizing tremors. In the back of your brain, someone screams, _"do it, or feel my wrath yourself..." _and you twinge with a terror that you'd almost forgotten after all these years.

Darling Draco gives a severe spasm underneath you. His body jerks just a little. Against the heaving expanse of your chest, his forehead slips down just slightly and, he mumbles a series of sentences that sound like nothing but nonsense. "M-Mum..." comes the only word that you can understand and, to your surprise, he pulls you into an unconscious embrace, face buried against your own neck, childish in his subconscious. Still, its the slipping speed of his heart rate that echoes out in your ears and you dig your nails into the cloth at his forearm, holding him there for just that much longer.

"_No, Draco, dear," _you want to coo, though you're too busy eating to do so, "_unfortunately, I'm not your pretty mother." _She'd risked everything just to save her precious son and you'd even admit that her last change of sides had saved your life, too. But you clamp down harder to prove it to him, forcing blood to pool out from the break in his skin- so much so, that it seeps out through the white cloth of his thin threaded pyjamas and _spreads, spreads, spreads, _down the wiry length of your fingers.

He's an eighteen year old being, but you think more than ever, how Draco's nothing more than a child. A poor, pathetic child. A long time ago, he'd made the wrong decisions and trusted the wrong people. It's not your fault he never grew up. Never found out. You, on the other hand... you'd moved on. On your own, you've conquered the demons. It makes no difference that you are now, in every respect, one of them. Still. He'd always been weak- is weak now, even. And the vulnerable sort of demeanor he fronts is just the cherry on top. _Weak, weak, weak, weak, weak. _You think it until you're blue in the face and, by the looks of things, Draco's lost a lot of blood. So, so weak. And Draco had never really stood a chance, now did he?

So you hoist, before you're actually aware of it, the body up over your shoulders like a sack. Against the flat of your back, his hair brushes the end of your own shirt and you're careless with the objects near his head. Yet you take, quickly, the steps towards the window in a fast-paced manner to stumble back away from the bed, one foot cast over the covers impressively- well refined like a dancer. Then you're gone, gone, gone; into the night like a thief or aSnatcher- having sinned. For you feel, more than ever, like a demon with this angel who you've both saved and dammed together. "_Off to Hell now_," you think, while you gaze one last time at the darkened image of his room, eyed ignorantly by the likes of Miss Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle. When you pull your foot over the window ledge and stare, readily, down at the lovely emerald garden, you don't even shiver.

Rather, it's the ice in your veins that could chill _this_ scene and, in a funny sort of way, you're sure it already has.

_Off to Hell..._

**III.**

It's under the watchful eye of your own image that you bury him.

The dammed statue overlooks your every move as you dig, the Muggle way, Draco Malfoy's six foot resting place. And the thing truly is as big, and powerful, and demeaning as it looks from a distance. Up close, it's even more of a fabrication, for its nothing like the old Harry Potter had ever been. And everywhere you teeter off to, its hardened gaze follows. Omnipresent. Like a God, it wavers; demeaning in the way that it hold you to your misdeeds, both egging on the funeral and producing your own death certificate altogether. Only just a bit ago, you'd carried the unconscious Draco to the graveyard in the darkness and placed his body gently down against the thickest tree trunk in the entire area. He's been good, real good, so you let him sleep off the dementia alone as you start to your own work in front of him, careful to avoid the persisting glance of your own stone irises.

People _pray _to the thing, you know, as if you're all-powerful. It's a stupid and foolish thing to do, really, but sometimes you watch them do it from the streets in the distance, growing red in the blackness before feeling utterly sick to your stomach. Beneath the large, dark shadow they kneel with their hands folded properly, asking blessing after blessing after bloody, buggering blessing that you couldn't possibly even give them. Cures to diseases and mental illnesses. Remedies to plagues. Miracles of rekindled love. Around the hedge, they leave flowers and offerings- beads and fabrics. It's enough to make you never want to leave the house again and, up close, your grievances are confirmed.

Even Draco, were he awake at the moment to gaze upon it, would have every right in the world to offer the thing a sneer of his own. _"God, Potter, you're full of yourself," _you envision him saying, despite the crooked way that his back sits sloppy against the chunk of chipping nature. "_Did you request to be depicted as a large, brutish poof or was that much implied in the contract?" _Then you frown at his torso, bent and bloody as it is; he's got a point, you know. The ghastly thing is ridiculous. Touche. Despite the prat's deceased state of being, he still manages to get to you. So you dig into the earth just a little more forcefully.

_Clink, clink, clink. _Each chunk you scoop from the earth fills a looming part in your chest. You're part of the walking undead now, and though its silly of you to resort to grave digging, you're almost overly enthusiastic now as you carry out the gesture. For Draco Malfoy you'll make an exception. A grand exception. For today's move-in day and you're glad to show him around the filthy floor plan. Infiltrated with maggots, you suppose. Riddled with rats. Termites, even. You laugh when you consider the notion of offering him a tent. Got to make him comfortable, you know. Or else he might bitch.

"I presume," you murmur, flashing the whites of your pointed teeth, "you'll quite like your neighbors." They'd hordes of them in the ground, some of which he'd been responsible for. In the night, the engravings strain out to you like stars, tiny and twinkling and flashing. You don't suppose they'll fancy the likes of their new tenant, but you shrug and grin, winking vibrantly at Draco for the likes of his life-long foolishness.

Still, you glance down at your work in the steadiest sort of sense, whistling. Anyway. He'll be waking up soon; and luckily, you're just at the six foot mark. Thus, you advance towards him in a slow type of way, barely crushing the leaves beneath the soles of your leather shoes. When you scoop him up from the ground, he makes a sloppy little noise and you chuckle, once, for he looks so small, despite the staggering length of his towering build. It doesn't matter that you're shorter than him- not at all, for you advance, rather precariously, to the hole in the universe that you'd created with the likes of your own two hands. Forbidding.

Then you lower him into the dirt in fractions, first depending on his lower half to touch the grime beneath the fabric of his ratty pyjama trousers. He groans a little again as you finish the job up, brows furrowing together by your neck as you tilt, very gently, his head back down into the gravel. He's paler already, _dead_ already; and you smooth the blond locks out of the puff of his eyelids to reveal the bruises at the crease, gliding the ends of your fingers down his cheek smoothing away the trail of blood that slides down his jawbone. And its not long after that you drop him, cautiously of course, into the deep down mound you've made of the graveyard.

And he's peaceful, so peaceful, so you coat him with the earth in the shovel and the moon looks bloated above you, waiting. In the spotlight he's bloody, dead, and _non-existent; _but its nothing that stops the ache in you. Nothing halts the _burn _in you. For you throw the dirt on his lap to secure him; one for the insults, one for the hexes, and one for the punches. One for the time he'd stomped your nose, one for the day hexed that necklace. Then he's almost gone as you conclude, finally trapping him below the layers of his newfound home. And, "_good riddance," _you think, as you salute one last time to the likes of the Malfoy boy, just seconds away from waking up to his brand new nightmare. Hope you're well, rest in pieces, and all that nonsense.

So you wait above the earth in the moonlight like a father, expectant of a child. So ready. And though you're not truly breathing, your chest lifts with the anticipation that's all but _killing_ you. It is, more than ever, the moon that really calls to you, beckons to you. So you're still in the confines of your practicality, so ready as the night and the wind rush about your very stature- freely, within the pores of your very skin. Perhaps neither of you had seen it coming, though, for its no secret now that the twist of your very existence shines as clear as day. Because, certainly, you'd never expected to have been bitten. In fact, you'd always just imagined the opposite. But you think back to the fantasies you'd had of the good life, the great life, and decide at that moment, its the life you've been given doesn't sway you. Now, you've found a way to compensate.

And Draco Malfoy? He'll have to, too. Maybe, you decide, he won't come to terms with it easily, but in due time, he'll learn to accept it. Perhaps he won't make the best vampire, but he'll be better- far better- than the person he had once been. Though its strange, too, the way you stand underneath the shadow of your stone hedge self, admiring the image of your handiwork satisfied beneath all the shadow. You've given him the gift, in a sense, of rebirth. Cleansed, like a Savior, his blackened soul- so forgiving of the rest of his turmoil. And you think not of how its the end that dawns upon you now, while the entire bloody universe seems to shift in preparation around you. Draco Malfoy's coming out tonight, and you can hear him, as he pulls even the first of his purple eyelids opened.

"Smile."

This time you whisper when you say it, eyes wide as you spot, for the first time, the tip of his grimy, rotting finger protrude from the mess. A tumble of grotesque brown soil slides away from the bit of his flesh and then, from the woodworks, his pretty little hand comes through. _Smile._

It makes you laugh that you know he won't be. _"Yet the ends,"_ you think, _"far outweigh the means."_ He'll hate you, perhaps more than he already does, but you've delivered him. Saved him. And tonight is the night he's repented without even trying. When the first arm reaches out towards you and clings, rather impressively, into the space by your feet, you extend your arms outward- accepting, in an embrace. "_Potter," _he'll croak when he sees you, _"you slimy little git. Wait until my father hears about this." _And you chuckle, loudly, to the air and the whoosh at your side. It truly has been a while. Perhaps you'll enjoy having that sense of schoolyard rivalry back. Perhaps.

Nevertheless, in your patience you wait for the moment to come to you. And you think how great it'll be... to have the old regime back in your life again.

Old Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, growing blood-thirsty together through the tides of these left-over mechanics. You consider, with your last bated breath, how romantic it will be as you flash him again the set of your pointed, white teeth.

Smile.


End file.
